HP invents a bargain! (HP Deskjet 640c)

Member Name: MichaelR

Product:	HP Deskjet 640c
Date:	25/04/01 (448 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, functional, extremely well built, no more paper jams!

Disadvantages: None that I can see...

Well, my Apollo P-1200 finally gave up on me. Paper jams are very common with that little printer, and so is the breaking off of paper-feed teeth when you try and pull out the big wedge of mashed up paper.

Anyway, my P-1200 now has a feed-tooth jammed in the drive mechanism, and I can't find a screwdriver anywhere that'll get me inside it!

Seeing as the cost of repair was not really justified (£35 to fix a £40 printer?) I headed of in search of a new, and better, inkjet printer for all my colour printing and first draft needs.

A quick glance along the shelves in my local PC World, and my eyes landed on the displayed HP DeskJet 640C - because it really did look amazingly good when perched next to all the other printers in its price range. It was the variety of different feed in trays that really fascinated me, and so I picked up the box for a better look and after reading the specs I decided to take one home with me.

And I'm glad I did!

This an absolutely SUPERB little printer!

£69.99 gets you a big, strong box (watch the handle though, mine broke!) containing the printer, driver/software CD , colour and black cartridges, power cable and adapter, user guide (which explains all the different configurations that this printer can morph into) and large posters which explain how to install the printer on a PC or Mac.

There's also a small insert concerning Windows ME - which basically just tells you to use the normal Windows '98 drivers with the printer.

What you don't get is a parallel cable or a USB cable (yes people, a USB printer for under seventy smackeroonies that's actually good!) but then very, very few printers do offer a cable as part of the package now. So you need to budget for the cable too if you don't already have one.

Chances are though, that if you already have a printer than you already have a parallel cable, and if you're a USB fan then y
ou almost certainly have a spare device cable somewhere.

The printer performs well using both types of connection, although it is better on parallel - as is to be expected really.

The whole thing installs very easily - plug it in, wait for Windows to find it, pop in the CD, and away you go!

The software once installed is very easy to configure - allowing you a choice of paper/card/envelope/transparency (is there anything this printer can't print on?) sizes, orientations, quality options etc.

All the options are well laid out, straightforward, and easy to understand - as is customary with HP hardware.

The printer uses two major types of cartridge (supplied). It uses the No. 20 (reference HP C6614) black cartridge, and the No. 49 (reference HP 51649) colour cartridge. There are little cards supplied for you to keep, so that you know what you need when the time comes to change the cartridges.

Both cartridges can be installed to once, so there's no changeover required when you want to switch between colour and black & white printing.

There is also a special photo cartridge which replaces the colour one if you ever come to do photo printing - although I've not yet made use of this capability.

The printer will do .25 Pages Per Minute in full colour, and up to 6 Pages Per Minute in black & white - depending on the selected print quality.

The Dots Per Inch ranges from 300*300 in draft mode to 600*600 when set to high quality.

The 640C really is a whole lot of printer for not a whole lot of money. It produces high quality printouts on a variety of mediums. It's solid, well built, reliable, fast, and it NEVER jams!

This really is well worth a look. At least consider this little beauty before you pick up that big, expensive Epson... or that temptingly cheap to buy but expensive to run Lexmark.

Summary: